Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Right House Press Briefing

This is a totally fabricated Insolublog dialogue, fielding Monday's questions from the white house press corps on the Bolton Nomination and recess appointment. Our guest press secretary, sitting in for the mild Scott McClellan, is the honorable Donald Rumsfeld. We enter the briefing already in progress...

..Setting aside the question of the merits, or demerits of Ambassador Bolton, --just that aside-- , the reality now is he goes up there without Senate confirmation. Does the President regret this in a sense, and does he feel that Bolton's efficiency up there, his effectiveness is going to be damaged by not having confirmation?

You really don't want to set aside the question of merits do you? I can see you are itching to badger this candidate with irrelevant minutiae, aren't you son?

Are you suggesting that leaving this post unmanned, for months of Senate bickering, is more efficient than a recess appointment? The President doesn't share this view. Neither do I.

How do you square that position with the opposition from folks like George Voinovich?

With all due respect to yourself, Voinovich is a invertebrate. Let me keep going on the first row, and then I'll come back to you, Carl. Terry, you had something.

A lot of people say that he was very sharp with subordinates and that he was tough and too hard on them. Does he intend to moderate his behavior in this new job?

Before you swoop down on this man's character, let's get a few things straight. Both the president and I like Johns style; I wouldn't ask him to change a thing. I believe that John's alpha dog treatment of the herd up there at the UN, will properly coral them back to sensible foreign policy. Actually, let me elaborate a bit. The UN is not a herd of sheep. It's a herd of cats. We need an appointee who is not afraid to endure a little biting and scratching.

In fact, Don, what a lot of people accuse Bolton of is being a hard-charging guy, abrasive, abusive. I mean, some of his critics have used all of these words. Even Kofi Annan, Secretary General, saying essentially, hey, take it easy up here; it's good to push, but you've got to work with other ambassadors. Is in fact -- is that, in fact, exactly what the President is looking for?

I know you are eager to latch on to John's character in a derogatory way. What part of 'Both the president and I like John's style', didn't penetrate your lexicon? He's a border collie; Smart, resourceful and loyal. That's what the president wants.

And the President is a pretty plain-spoken guy, as well, so why don't we be -- why don't you be a little bit more blunt here. (Laughter.) Does, in fact --

[long pause]. More blunt? Are you suffering from short term memory loss as well as halitosis, son?

Yes. But the rap here is the President has chosen somebody who is quite undiplomatic for a diplomatic post. Is that what he wants?

That's the whole problem with these guys! They are all diplomats. They don't think; They drink. The president wants a thinker in that position.

Mr. Secretary, some of the Democrats are saying this is abuse of power, and if you'd given over some of the information that you had, he would have gotten a vote. How do you respond to that?

This is Washington. Stinging accusations and reprisals are nothing new here. Nobody in the public believes that he would have gotten a vote, without a protracted battle. Which Democrats are you talking about? Ted Kennedy? Hiding behind his mother's political skirt after drowning a young woman; that's what I call abuse of power.

.. On Bolton's aggressive and abrasive managerial style, what does this send to --

This line of questioning stinks. Let's move on to someone without a surplus ear wax problem.

Well, following up on what you just said, you're basically saying that a handful of senators, Democrats, are holding you up. What do you think about Senator Ed Kennedy talking about how Bolton misled Congress by denying he had interviewed in the State Department CIA investigation of faulty pre-war intelligence on Iraq?

Boy... You guys get a little sniff of blood in the water, and you automatically think you have story to shake apart ...

If I could belabor it just a little bit, his --

No you may not. I'm a busy man. I have already elaborated, on all of the details, regarding Sen. Kennedy's varied and numerous emissions.

But do you expect him [Bolton] to -- he is very, very proud of his hard-charging style. Do you anticipate that he's going to continue to operate that way in the United Nations environment?

You people -- and I have to use that term with extreme looseness in this context -- continue to complain about Bolton's efficiency at the UN. What about your efficiency? If you condensed all your ridiculous little rhetorical, Jeopardy speeches into to a single question, I would be able to answer more questions instead of repeating myself.

Some Democrats are saying that this appointment will complicate the confirmation process for Judge Roberts. Did the President consider that? And does he have any strategy for trying to convince Democrats that they should abandon partisanship --

Yes, he has a strategy. He intends to end all these nocturnal filibusters by securing a decisive majority in the next round of Senate elections. That's it for questions. I have to go! As you file out, make sure you read more about the Bolton story over at Point Five.